Symphonies & Scorpions: Breaking Up The Band
WELCOME TO THE 27th DAILY INSTALLMENT OF SYMPHONIES & SCORPIONS: AN INTERNATIONAL CONCERT TOUR AS AN INSTRUMENT OF CITIZEN DIPLOMACY.
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Breaking Up the Band: Sunday, May 11-Monday, May 12
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Ah, the final breakfast buffet. How will I survive without them? I say my goodbyes to the early risers. Almost everyone is going home. A small group is staying in Japan and going to a luxurious Buddhist monastery in Kyoto for “spiritual revitalization.” Assistant concertmaster Elita Kang and violinist Jennie Ahn are going to Korea to visit family. Elita, born in New York, will be meeting her ninety-two-year-old grandfather for the first time. I’m the only one I know of who’s staying in Tokyo, and look forward to long hours of visiting friends, eating, drinking, and telling old stories.
To me it feels like the end of something, but most of the musicians will be flying back to Boston together and will be back in the grind in a few days when the Pops season starts. What’s that old maxim? The Boston Symphony gathers no moss?
Nostalgia in a Nutshell
I’m on my own. The three-story Kimi Ryokan, tucked away on a side street in Ikebukuro, is the perfect place to wind up my trip. An example of simple Japanese elegance, my room consists of a tatami floor, a futon, and a pocket door storage closet. The inn is geared to budget travelers, both Japanese and international, but I wouldn’t trade it for any of the Grand Hyatts I’ve stayed at over the past two weeks.
Over the next couple of days, I have warm-hearted reunions with my friend and colleague, pianist Janos Cegledy, and with my dear friends, the Yogos, Minamis, and Higashis. I could go on and on about the wonderful discussions and meals I’ve had with all of these old friends, but that would be of more interest to me than to you. Still, I find these meetings with old friends in Japan more poignant than expected, as I sense this might be the last time I’ll ever see some of them.
I also take a nostalgic visit to the Musashino Music Academy in Ekoda, just west of Ikebukuro. I’m greeted warmly by everyone from President Naotaka Fukui on down through the loyal staff who have remained since I taught there in 1986, moving up the administrative ladder. As President Fukui speaks “only” Japanese and German, they went to the trouble of providing me with a faculty English professor from Australia to translate at our meeting. I’m lucky to have had this occasion to pay a visit because I’m informed that very soon almost the entire campus will be torn down and rebuilt in order to remain competitive. During the reconstruction, everything will be shifted to their other campus in Iruma, outside of Tokyo. Then, when the new Ekoda campus is finished, it will be Iruma’s turn for a makeover.
After our cordial meeting, the staff, including President Fukui, escorts me to the gate and as the English professor and I walk away down the long lane to the subway station, he instructs me: “Turn and wave,” which I do. He explains that if I hadn’t done that, out of politeness they would’ve had to wait until we were out of sight, regardless of how busy they were. There may be a strict formality about the way Japanese do things, but I find it very touching, nevertheless.
Wrestling with Feelings: Tuesday, May 13
Which will it be? The Sumo tournament or the stunningly picturesque Rikugien garden on my final full day in Japan? If I hadn’t planned to meet the Minamis for dinner at their home on the west side of Tokyo, it would’ve been Ryougoku Sumo Hall on the east side of town. But since the makuuchi, or top division of the six, with their grand champion yokozuna, don’t wrestle until the evening of the all-day tournaments, I decide not to rush all over Tokyo only to see the lesser grapplers.
Once I arrive Rikugien, the most tranquil place in Tokyo, I know I’ve made the right choice. Even though I go there every time I’m in Tokyo, I can’t resist taking dozens of photos as I wander around the perimeter of the park’s central lake and explore its side trails. I must have looked like a dufus, taking a picture of every tree, but they had been tended so artfully and sculpted and with such loving care. I hadn’t realized, or had forgotten, the park was built in 1702, and that each of the park’s features, from the pond to the hillocks, even to individual boulders, represent the famous eighty-eight views of Japan.
[image error]Rikugien Garden, one of the world’s most tranquil spots, in the middle of Tokyo.
It was well worth forsaking the sumo tournament for my dinner with the Dr. Takeo and Makiko Minami. When my quartet toured Japan in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, they annually hosted a concert in their spacious home, which had been designed by one of Japan’s top architects. After each concert was a gourmet dinner for the entire assemblage that alone was worth the price of admission. My dinner with them and their family tonight is an opportunity to catch up on old times, and to toast to our hope for another meeting soon. It was a perfect way to spend my last night in Japan.
A Challenging Return: Wednesday, May 14
I can’t sleep. I look at the clock—5:30 AM—and decide to catch the Narita Express train, departing at 6:43, which goes directly from Ikebukuro Station to Narita Airport. Otherwise, I’ll have to take the Yamanota Line, which circles central Tokyo, with my luggage during morning rush hour, and then have to change trains at Nishi Nippori. I’m ready to go by 6:00.
Here’s a curious tidbit to highlight the vagaries of time travel: Flight JL8, nonstop to Boston, is scheduled for departure at 11:20 AM. It’s a thirteen-hour flight, and because the time difference is also thirteen hours, my scheduled arrival time in Boston is Wednesday 11:20 AM. That was the first indication of how surreal my day would be.
Challenge #1: I can’t get out of my ryokan. The doors are locked from the outside until 7:00 AM, as I discover too late from the fine print in my reservation form. I ring the bell at the front desk for service. No response. What to do? Standing in the lobby, I phone the ryokan, hoping someone two-feet away will answer. The tactic is successful, but unfortunately wakes up the guy who’s on call. He’s polite enough, though, and as soon as he lets me out the door I’m sure he’ll go back to his futon.
I schlep my suitcase and computer case, having astutely packed my violin in the BSO’s instrument trunk after the last concert, through the streets of Ikebukuro, which is bustling at night but a ghost town in the morning, to Ikebukuro Station. Only a few vocal crows, picking over last night’s goodies discarded on the street, note my passage.
Challenge #2: The JR (Japan Rail) office at Ikebukuro Station is shuttered, so I ask about tickets at the station information booth, and am instructed to proceed to the ticket machines. I have to go up and down a service elevator with all my stuff several times to get this far. It takes a while, but I finally figure out how to get the ticket I need, though I can only guess at which of Narita’s two terminals JAL is located.
Challenge #3: Which track is the train on? I don’t see the sign at first and ask around. I eventually find it off at the end of the bank of track entrances.
Challenge #4: Which terminal to get off the train at the airport? During the hour-long trip, I silently practice how to ask the conductor that question in Japanese when he takes my ticket, but there’s no conductor to be found. Fortunately, ten minutes before arriving at Narita, the TV monitor at the front of my train car lights up and lists which airlines are at which terminal. JAL is at stop number one, Terminal 2. If that’s confusing, it’s because you’re probably not Japanese. And then the conductor arrives.
Challenge #5: I’m flying from Narita to Boston on a ticket the BSO had purchased for the musicians. I had separately made a reservation for a flight from Boston back home to Salt Lake City. The check-in attendant wants to know my connecting flight number to Salt Lake. I don’t know offhand. That’s way too far into the future. If I had known, it would’ve enabled me to transfer my suitcase to the connecting flight without having to haul it from Terminal E to Terminal A in Logan. But as I have a four hour layover there to look forward to, and the activity will help me waste time and keep my legs from atrophying, I pass on looking up the flight number.
Challenge #6: The thirteen hour nonstop flight is uneventful until hour twelve when the flight attendant serves hamburgers in a self-steaming sealed pouch with an instruction manual in poorly-translated English. Prying open the uncooperative pouch, my arm bumps against the flight attendant. The rebound makes a direct hit on my hot coffee, which fortunately isn’t as scalding as McDonald’s litigious blend. And the coffee color is uncannily similar to my pants, so I’m spared the humiliation as well as the pain. The flight attendant, helpful though not particularly remorseful, offers to bring a new hamburger, which I accept, while declining a fresh cup of coffee.
I arrive in Boston otherwise intact. The first thing I notice at Logan is how shabbily dressed and unhealthy so many Americans look, but that’s for another book.
Challenge #7: Because I’m concerned my suitcase will be overweight for the domestic flight, I remove some items from it, including my toiletry kit, and put them into a smaller bag I had cunningly packed for this contingency. When I check in at Delta, I discover I was right on the money—my big suitcase weighs fifty pounds on the button. What I’ve neglected, however, are the toiletries going through security. My shaving cream is confiscated. My scissors and extra razor blades go through without a hitch.
Challenge #8: How the hell does one get online on a smart phone if the user himself is not smart? I try every setting humanly possible for the free airport Wi-Fi with no success. Finally, I surrender and asked a guy next to me. He shows me in two seconds. He must be a genius of some sort. Whether I can duplicate the feat, however, is another question.
The flight to Salt Lake City thankfully does not present any additional challenges. However, before boarding it’s announced that one of the passengers is allergic to peanuts, and so no snacks will be served on the flight. Too bad, I was looking forward to scorpions on a stick. Great to be back in America.
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Click on the title if you’d like to purchase Symphonies & Scorpions in its entirety. It’s available in two paperback editions, one chock-full of black-and-white photos, the other with color photos, and in Kindle.
NEWS FLASH: MY FIRST POLITICAL THRILLER, THE BEETHOVEN SEQUENCE, IS SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE ON SEPTEMBER 8! A MENTALLY UNBALANCED MUSIC TEACHER BECOMES PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! PREPOSTEROUS? STAY TUNED.
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